The Bond of True Friendship

When I left "the world" to enter the cloister, my deepest sorrow was not, as one would think, leaving my family, but leaving my friends. My family, I knew, would always be there for me and I would be always in their hearts, and they would certainly visit as often as was permitted; but how many of my friendships would survive what could have been a lifelong separation? If I had remained in the cloister, taken solemn vows, it was quite possible that I would never again see any of them, unless they made the trip to Lufkin to visit, or to witness my Solemn Profession.

 

I did receive letters from some of my friends, and one of them did come for a brief visit. One, however, wrote to me far more often than the others. Oddly enough, it was a friend I hardly ever saw in person (and still see only rarely). I was so very grateful whenever my novice directress handed me an envelope scrawled with his familiar handwriting! It was during those two and a half years, enclosed in the monastery walls, that I learned how true a friend he was and is.

Forgetting

Forgetting is the thing I fear the most.
I can't forbid the fading of the day,
nor can I draw the curtains of your heart
against the void of predatory night.
The music we have shared, the scattered days,
are feeble beams of light across the sea
of separation, circumstance, and time.
That there may only be what there
has been, I won't regret. The one thing I
could never bear is that you would forget.


Assurance

"How could I forget you? Be sure of my eternal friendship,
     as I am sure of yours." ~ from a letter

There is a passacaglia in my mind
That plays its stately rhythm on those days
When faith becomes a nebulous, gray haze
And all bright hope lies languishing behind.
Its harmonies are simple, yet refined;
Its tune develops at a solemn pace;
There is comfort in its persistent bass,
A steady beat, dependable and kind.
Above all, its composer is most dear,
For it is you, who wrote it for my heart
When cloister walls had once kept me apart
From things familiar, things I held as mine.
It is my talisman against all fear
Of distance, and its thieving ally, time.


Definition of "passacaglia"
© Leticia Austria 2008, 2011